Waiting
by Erythros
Summary: Her last thoughts are of the boy who reminds her of winter. [DracoHermione]


**Title:** Waiting  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** It is because of JK Rowling that we have such a wonderful set of characters to write about.  
**Author's Notes: **This was written for the dmhgficexchange at Livejournal. I wrote this for Stacey/bk11. :P Beta'd by my friend, Onzie, and written last December. I'm only posting it now, though. :D  
**Summary:** Her last thoughts are of the boy who reminds her of winter.

* * *

_And I find it kinda funny  
I find it kinda sad  
The dreams in which I'm dying  
Are the best I've ever had  
Mad World, Gary Jules_

* * *

_Where are you?_

When the first shafts of light come spilling through the vast gray clouds of morning, she smiles slightly. Snow is tumbling beautifully from the colorless sky, covering almost everything her sight can reach. No hint of color but white and gray can she see, no bright shade of red or green to destroy the beauty of the view.

A gentle wind blows past by and then _silence_.

_I'm cold._

She somehow thinks of him and how he looks like winter. He is pale as the snow. His hair is fair as the light that cuts through the season's monotony. His eyes are gray as the sky. He's cold as the air.

She's every bit as different from him. At least, that's what he always tells her, and that's why he insists that they can't really be… _like that_. Flecks of snow are caught in her hair—a riot of dark curls so different from _his_—as she watches so many others around her descend to the snow-covered ground.

_I can't keep waiting forever._

Winter is so quiet, so _mysterious_. She hates having to wonder, having to _not_ know the things behind things, and winter is one of those _things_ in the world that she hates contemplating on. She doesn't like it when she doesn't know anything about something.

She can't just understand it, why something so _beautiful_ could be so _cold_.

He's like that, she believes.

Truthfully, she thinks that spring is a more pleasant season, a period of color where everything seems to be so pretty and so _safe_. She likes the warm rain of spring so much more than the hostile snow of winter. It's so much nicer to be lying on cool, wet grass than frosty, bitter ground.

But she loves this blasted season anyway, the way she loves him.

_I don't understand._

Somewhere far away, she imagines Harry and Ron—_the best people she's ever had,_ she thinks absentmindedly—fooling around at some yuletide party at the break of day, the way they always do each year. Ron's probably dressed up as Santa again (_he always dresses up like that_) and Harry's getting up the courage to ask Ginny to stand under the mistletoe with him. Vague images of them—_because that's all she can see now_—make her smile, and a part of her so badly wants to leave this place to be with them. She wants to stand up and go where they are and live _forever_.

But she _can't._ She _won't._

Because she's here and she's waiting and waiting and waiting…

_My eyes are getting bleary…_

There's a crunch of snow somewhere near her, but she can't hear it (_she can only hear her own breathing—shallow, quick, and almost dying._); she thinks she's alone in this cold, her arms spread wide and her eyes, so glassy, staring up at the breaking sky.

He always said she was dirty. (_A filthy, dirty, worthless Mudblood._) He always reminded her of that, that she wasn't anything more than he was, that he _hated_ her and her like, that she didn't deserve such a wizard like _him_. She always thought he was wrong.

She glances sideways and there is crimson marring white. There, a few feet off, she sees the hilt of a sword—_such a beautiful sword, so graceful, so curved_—its blade gleaming with the same crimson that she taints the pristine snow.

And then she realizes he's never been more right.

_Where are you?_

_They_ always thought she didn't deserve to die like a witch—_die the Muggle way, slowly and painfully_—and it hurts, it hurts so much, to die alone without anyone to see you at your last breath. She refuses to cry because she knows she won't be on her own, that someone—_anyone_—will come for her and save her from all of this. He'll come because he'll know she's tainted him and he'll do everything to clear away the red; she will not lose hope because _he'll_ save her, he'll know what to do and he'll make her live forever because as much as he hates her, he won't leave her here to_ die_.

_He'll come he'll come he'll come he'll come and he'll save me._

People over exaggerate when they say their lives flash before their eyes—because she can't see anything but black and white and then images of _him_: the way his mouth curves into a cocky smirk; the way his pale hair falls so strikingly over his eyes; the way he stares off into the distance and then looks back at her and frowns.

And then she remembers he hasn't come yet—and she expects he never will.

_I'm almost gone._

There's a lone tear sliding down her pale, frozen cheek, and her heart is beating—_still beating, and I'm still alive a bit longer_—because everything is slowly fading into nothing and she _still feels so cold._

Another crunch.

Somewhere far off is a voice—calling out to her, echoing in an almost melodious and familiar manner. It is the wind, she suspects, whispering her name, mocking her by mimicking _his_ voice, playing tricks with her mind. She's far too tired to get angry; all she does is smile, because she thinks he has come: _he has come after all and I'm glad._

And there is the epitome of winter himself, hovering over her, and though her vision is almost gone, she can clearly see his eyes—with bits of the sky locked inside of them—wide and almost frantic with shock and fear. Fear for her, she likes to think, which he's always kept from her in the War. She barely feels him scoop her up into his arms, whimpering, panicking, saying something about blood (_he always liked to mock her blood_) and then brushing away her hair from her face for her to look him straight in the eye and tell him _she's still alive_.

_Of course I am._ She always will be as long as he wants her to be.

The pain she's had is no longer there; the cold has gone and all she feels now is him.

_Warm and safe but…_

Perhaps he is nothing like winter. He is warm. His arms feel safe. Tears falling from his eyes remind her of spring rain.

Another gentle wind blows past by and then silence.

_Too late._

* * *

**Author's Note**: Correction about the sword—it's a samurai sword and it was only after I submitted it that I realized my mistake (thanks to Stacey for pointing it out!), that samurai swords are not at all curved, but are actually straight. Stupid me! Haha. I hope you enjoyed it. Review?


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